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In our last article, we left the two New York Syrian camps — Orthodox and Maronite — on the brink of war. Each side’s partisan newspaper attacked the other, and the Maronites took particular aim at St. Raphael, the Orthodox bishop of Brooklyn, accusing him of all sorts of outlandish offenses. Various parties received anonymous…

Editor’s note: This is a slightly revised version of an article that I originally published back in 2010. It’s also the first of a series of articles on the “Battle of Pacific Street,” and its aftermath. And just in case you’re reading this and don’t know who St. Raphael Hawaweeny was: he was the Bishop…

From 1895 until his death in 1915, St. Raphael Hawaweeny was the unquestioned leader of the Arab Orthodox in America. He was technically affiliated with the Russian Archdiocese, although he also had strong ties to the Patriarchate of Antioch. When he died, his followers split into two factions. The Russy faction, which ultimately coalesced around…

I was browsing in the wonderful photo collection at Alaska’s Digital Archives the other day when I ran across the above photo, which was titled, “3/4 length seated portrait of unidentified priest.” Who was he? The bottom of the photo gives us a clue, of course: the name “Weitz” (probably the photographer) and the name…

NOTE: This is a revised version of my original article. In that article, a central theme was that Fr. Joseph was half Greek and half Lebanese. I have since had the privilege of speaking with his granddaughter, who told me that he was actually 100% Greek, although he was fluent in Arabic (among many other…

So I think I found something I’ve been looking for for many, many years — the birthdate of Fr. Raphael Morgan, the first black Orthodox priest in America. First, the backstory. Until now, the closest I’ve been able to get to nailing down a birthdate for Fr. Raphael is to say, “circa 1864 to 1871.”…

One of our SOCHA advisory board members is Deacon Andrei Psarev, church history instructor at Holy Trinity Seminary in Jordanville, NY. He’s asked us to help spread the word about a conference being held at Jordanville on October 10 and 11 to commemorate the 700th anniversary of the birth of St. Sergius of Radonezh. They’re asking…